This blog is about the making of the World War II documentaries called "The Heroes of the 354th Fighter Group" and "Angel from Hell - The Bill Perkins Story".
If you want to contact me, send an email to flashframe1966@gmail.com.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Once again fierce fires are destroying homes in Southern California. Although there was another evacuation today, our house was just a few blocks out of the mandatory evacuation zone. Luckily the fire did not get anywhere near as close as it did a few weeks ago. But many other houses were lost a few miles from here.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I see that there is gun camera footage from Chuck Hawley and Lowell Brueland (two of the men we interviewed) at the end of the video! And there is even footage from Bill Perkins's gun camera and one of his diary entries explains in detail what is happening on the film!!!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Fran, Zev and I interviewed Charles Simsonson at his home and he told us of a mid air collision of two B-26s from the 397th Bomb Group.

After the collision, one plane had its tail ripped off and the other has its nose damaged. The plane with out the tail went down. The other plane was still able to fly and Charles Simonson flew wing to that plane and helped it get back to the round safely in Caen.

I have been editing this segment today and spent some time researching the event on the web. I was able to find a great website where there are three mentions of the accident. The main page is at www.b-26marauderarchive.org

Here are some still screen captures from the website. (I have an email to them asking permission to use the diary pages in the documentary.)

1) From the diary of Allen Wright Stephens - He dated the event as having occurred on August 2 (not the 3rd)

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Well, the new house I had put an offer on did not work out. The home inspection went terrible! So I am staying put for while here in Porter Ranch.

The last few months have been spent looking for a house, working lots of overtime and evacuating fire zones. Things seem to have calmed down quite a bit. I was able to get all my computers up and running tonight (they had been in my garage since we were able to return from being evacuated.)

And so now I have some free time to work on the documentaries again.

I just scanned some photos that Art Owen's family gave me at the last reunion.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

My roommate and I were evacuated due to the Sesnon Fire in Porter Ranch, California on Monday. Luckily my roommate had called me at 11:30 am and I was home by 12:00 noon to pack as much as I could. (The fire had started at 10:30 am.)

The fire had grown so quickly, that by 2 PM the fire trucks came through the neighborhood and called for a mandatory evacuation. (By this time most of the residents were gone.)

The smoke and ash was thick. My roommate helped me pack as much of the video and photos and computers as we could. We then drove out of our gated community and were astonished how the heat of the fire could be felt through the side of our cars. The smoke was so thick you could not see more than ten feet ahead.

Once we got down the hill, we spent a few hours at a friend's house.

We did not return to our house until late Tuesday night. Luckily there was no damage to our house. The fire department did a great job saving all the houses in our community! They are heroes!

Thanks to everyone who has called to check on us! Everything turned out fine for us!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

General F. Michael Rogers and Capt. Bruno Peters talk about friendly fire and one of the first missions into Germany of the 354th Fighter Group. Crew Chief Fred Stagnaro talks about a special kind of gas tank.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

I have been editing a section of the film involved two of "The Heroes of the 354th" and their destruction of two enemy jets.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Bruno Peters and Ralph Delgado about a mission on March 2, 1945. Peters was leading the flight and both Peters and Delgado shot down an ME 262 German Jet near Kassel.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Using a computer program from Apple called MOTION, I will be adding some 3-D movement to the original 2-D photographs that the men and the families of the 354th have let us use for the documentary.

Thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to let us use their personal photos for our important documentary!!!

Especially to Daniel Carrizales and William W. Louie who were the first to loan us photos and get the ball rolling on this documentary project!

This photo from Will is of a man named Jack Wimer. Will has also let us use hundreds of scans from his collection of Jack's personal documents from the war. Among these documents are scans of the original typed historical record of the 356th Fighter Squad and Jack's typed note cards that documented important events from the 354th Fighter Group. Some of these scans will be used to accent dates in our film. You can see an example of these in the "Hitler's Secret Weapon" clip I added to this blog a few days ago.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

I recently received an email from the author of "Immigrants of War," a WW2 book about the men who flew with the RCAF/RAF before flying for the United States. His name is Wally Fydenchuk.

He was able to send me some very useful information about William R. Perkins, my relative who served in the 354th Fighter Group.

Re: William Perkins : RCAF Service Number: R 137297

Received his RCAF pilot wings at No. 8 Service Flying Training School, Moncton, New Brunswick on November 6, 1942. Upon graduation received Pilot Officer commission J.20640. Retired from the RCAF September 27, 1943 to transfer to the USAAF.

This will help with my timeline for the "Angel From Hell" documentary.